Rant 2,474: Bloody Well Right

Vampires do die.

You can kill a vampire by putting a stake in their heart, and you can also kill them by preventing them from going back into their coffin, where they rest during the day and come out at night, stalking victims to satiate their need for a continual supply of fresh blood.

What am I talking about here?

Vampires do die, or at least actors who portray vampires, and the other day, actor Ben Cross left us at age 73.

Let me explain ...

Yes, the actor was in the Oscar-nominated film from 1981 "Chariots of Fire" playing Harold Abrams, a participant in the 1924 Olympics who faced prejudice because he was Jewish.

Yes, the actor also played Spock's father in 2009's "Star Trek" film, so he is indelibly linked to that long-running franchise.

He had a long career, was a real actors' actor from all accounts, but to me at least, he will always be remembered as Barnabas Collins in the reboot of television's popular gothic soap opera "Dark Shadows."

But in 1991, this classically trained actor portrayed television's favorite vampire in the reboot of "Dark Shadows" on NBC, which had morphed into a nighttime soap opera from its daytime roots for this revival.

As many of us recall, Jonathan Frid was the first Barnabas Collins on the ABC daytime original. What was supposed to be a few-episode run to boost a failing daytime soap opera's ratings turned into a real influx of blood into the show, and it became a cult favorite, perhaps the first soap opera to successfully market itself to a younger audience.

Frid became one of the hottest actors on television, and he was so popular that he was featured in teen magazines like "Tiger Beat" and "16" alongside the likes of Davy Jones and Mark Lindsay.

The original "Dark Shadows" had a nice five-year run, went off the air, but then was up there in the pantheon of cult shows such as "Star Trek," as a show that just would not die, vampires and all.

Finally, in 1991, NBC premiered a newer, more expensive and perhaps darker version of the show, and although it ran just a few months, Cross was a definite standout as the vampire Barnabas, a fiend that viewers did not hate, but pitied, as he struggled with his blood lust.

Cross was certainly a sexier Barnabas than Frid was, as television had opened up a bit from 1966 to 1991, but the actor handled his role with great aplomb, being pleasured and tortured almost at the same time.

He "got" the Barnabas character, but he made it a bit different than Frid's characterization. While Frid was quaint and proper as the role demanded, yet could be horrific too, Cross' portrayal was all of these, too, but he was less stilted than Frid, and was able to display his acting chops a bit more than his predecessor.

Perhaps it was the fact that we are talking about a daytime soap opera format versus a nighttime soap opera format, but Cross seemed to relish the role, and tried to make it more rounded than Frid could do in such a stilted format that he portrayed the character in.

Cross was definitely the highlight of the short-lived show, which ran into so many pre-emptions and postponements due to the coverage of the Gulf War that viewers did not even know when, or if, it would be shown from week to week.

I liked Frid in the Barnabas role, and I liked Cross's portrayal too.

So with all of his many acting accomplishments, I will still always remember Cross as the second Barnabas Collins, and I will certainly remember his portrayal of the character way better than the Johnny Depp botch job from the most recent "Dark Shadows" film, which has to go down as one of the 10 worst films ever made in my opinion.

Heavens, that film needed Cross, or Frid, both who understood the character, rather than Depp, who made the character into little more than a sap, someone that you can't pity for his affliction ... heck, give me the stake and I will take him out of his misery.

There is talk of yet another reboot of "Dark Shadows" on television, and while Frid's Barnabas will always be the standard used for the character, Cross's Barnabas cannot be discounted.

I think if this thing comes to fruition, and we do get a new "Dark Shadows," the actor portraying Barnabas will take the best of both actors' portrayals and meld it into something new, something believable, something that we can all watch and be amazed by.

Ben Cross tried to do just that, and looking back at the 1991 reboot, I do think he accomplished just that.